Rosalind Hudis

The Artist Mixes Color in the Renaissance

Don’t think of me as lime-robed and lost
in undailiness. I come with sleeves rolled up
worker in a mire of substance. Yes, I stink!
I chew on a rotted wafer — dry fish glue
my saliva in the mix. How else stretch the hue
of some frosty cleric? My paints are part kill:
rabbit skin, horse hoof, pig’s blood.
I knife, mine, grind, churn, pound, steep, sweat
my way to that primal blue you worship.
When you varnish me with meaning, remember
the grit under my nails, the fumes. Green
comes from the labor camps you made
for your longing. And that hair-coiled girl
resolved from light. She’s no photo-shopped
pink fix. She took on the earth
to coagulate: egg-yolk, red clay, mineral, marble
dust. Do you think, if she looked up
she wouldn’t roar with the energy of her roots?